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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Retreat Report 1

I had a wonderful time at my retreat over the weekend. This was the first four day/three night retreat I have attended. It was fun but I didn't bring quite enough to work on. It was probably a good thing though because cutting scraps was one of my projects I brought. If I had had something else to sew yesterday morning I would not have got as much cutting done as I did.

I forgot to take a before photo of the two large bags of fabrics these were cut from. I also used some of these before taking the photo in one of the three charity tops I pieced over the weekend. I am happy with the amount of progress I made with cutting up these scraps. In case you are wondering, I cut 6" squares, 4.5" squares and 4" by 6" rectangles.

Another project I worked on was some wonky cross blocks. I bought a charm pack of Moda Basic Grey and used them with some solids to create these blocks.

This is just some of the blocks I made. There were 42 charm squares in the pack and I used them all. You'll see more of this project in the future as I finish it up.

At every retreat one of our members provides a mystery block for everyone to make. Fabric requirements are given out before the retreat and then we get a clue or two per day to do. This time we made fish blocks.

We were told to bring "1 fat quarter of wild bright print (think Lynn Weathers) and 1 fat quarter of black print with primary colors plus a solid to match our bright print." Well, obviously I have a reputation of using wild bright prints! I had to make sure that I lived up to my reputation so I chose carefully what fabrics to bring. My fish is the one on the top left of the middle photo. You can see the fabrics better in the bottom photo though (top right). Mine ended up being the rainbow trout. The block pattern is by Doreen Speckman and was originally published in a magazine many years ago. I don't know which magazine though.

My friend Peg made this wonderful piece. The link will take you to Peg's website. She has a long arm quilting business.

Bing by Peg Collins

Isn't this just fabulous?! She pieced the colored part before retreat. At the retreat she made the black background and mounted the finished colored part on top. Peg is one of the members of my art group, the Sew Silly Sisters.

There are many more retreat pictures and stories to share, but those will have to wait for another day.

2 comments:

Your wild print was really awesome! Love how that turned out. And I really LOVE Peg's quilt, too! Looks like you got a lot done. I love the soothing colors of the blocks you were working on. That's going to be a really nice quilt when you are done. Glad you had a good time!